by Eric Flint
It was very hard to pretend that a person had not read a letter from the vicar of Christ on earth. Especially when it was accompanied by one from the father general of the Jesuit order and arrived in a Jesuit mail bag. His Holiness would know perfectly well that it had been delivered into her own hands.
Praying for the courage to obey, she read farther.
They were to go to—Grantville? Her heart started to pound; her hands shook.
Not to some polite prison where they would live henceforth in the shadow of the Inquisition? Next year, she would complete a half century on this earth. She was not well. She had not been well for years. But, if God were gracious, she would still have time to serve him.
She started to read the pope's letter again, from the beginning. They were to remove from Munich and go to Grantville.
There. That was clearly written. She had not been mistaken.
She could safely read farther. They were to remove from Munich inconspicuously, if possible surreptitiously. It might be the course of prudence for them to announce their intent of making a pilgrimage, but any other plausible reason would be quite acceptable. They would be observed by the Holy Office, of course; the Holy Office observed everything that the Ladies did. It was to be presumed that Duke Maximilian would not endorse their departure.
That, Mary Ward thought, had to be the understatement of the year. Everybody knew that the duke was infuriated by anything that had to do with these "monstrous men from the future" who had welded themselves to the cause of the Swede.
They were to go to Grantville, where the suppression of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary would be reversed for purposes of its operation within the limits of the United States of Europe, under the sponsorship of the new Cardinal-Protector.
"You will have received a bank draft from Our nephew."
That accounted for the transmission from Cardinal Francesco.
"Father Vitelleschi will provide details."
* * * *
The school run by the English Ladies announced that for purposes of allowing their pupils to participate more fully in the festivities associated with the marriage of Bavaria's gracious Duke Maximilian to Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria, after the girls had participated in the ceremony of welcome when the wedding procession reached the gates of Munich, classes would be dismissed for the entire following week. The Jesuits had extended a blanket invitation for the pupils of the school to participate as extras in the production of Belisarius, Christian General in the Schrannenplatz to celebrate the wedding. The girls would need to be available for costuming, rehearsals, and other incidentals.
The pupils were duly ecstatic.
Their parents, upon occasion, somewhat less so. It meant, of course, that during a week of uproar, they would have to keep an eye on their daughters themselves. However, they could hardly protest the decision without seeming disloyal to the duke. And girls could always help their mothers with the cooking, baking, and other activities at home when they weren't rehearsing. The parents made the best of it. There probably wouldn't be another wedding in the ducal family for a long time. If the Austrian became pregnant and bore a son, not for twenty years, at least.
Let the girls have their fun.
* * * *
Father General Vitelleschi's instructions had been meticulously detailed.
Arrangements in Munich would be made through Father Matthaeus Roeder. Mary Ward cocked her head for a moment at the spelling. Who? Oh, Father Rader. He was very old. But he had taught rhetoric for years. He knew everybody, including, because of his three-volume history of the duchy, everybody at court. And he had written famous plays himself, so he was certain to be consulted on the production being put on for the wedding. What a good choice, especially since the girls from the school had been invited to take part in the play.
Was that why the girls from the school had been invited to take part in the play? The English ladies were never cloistered; they could move freely through the city in pairs. But this way, no one would be surprised to see them at the rehearsals, supervising the girls even though they were officially out of school.
Father Drexel would assist them. Jeremias Drexel was the rector of the Jesuit collegium in Munich; formerly head of the gymnasium as well. Also formerly Duke Maximilian's court preacher, although he had given up that responsibility more than a dozen years earlier, in 1621, after the duke's Bohemian campaign. He had retired to write a biography of the Duchess Elisabeth Renata and compose theological works. Conflict of interest? Not for a Jesuit; his vow of obedience was to the pope, not the duke. Father General Vitelleschi must be serious about this.
Drexel had overall responsibility for the entire production of the play.
He would also be, perhaps, better able than most to give the Ladies advice on what might be happening in the United States of Europe. Born in Augsburg, he had originally been Lutheran. Father Drexel, as a convert, might have some insight into the way the Swede and his allies would look at the holy father's latest move.
Mary Ward decided to use Father Drexel's School of Patience for this evening's spiritual reading.
We should think, as we gather riches, as we sit in positions of great honor, as we indulge in luxurious pleasures. All this only a dream, and moreover a short and frivolous dream. When we wake from it, there will be no riches in our hands.
What, then is life? To be brief, the period for which human life lasts is only a point on a line, its very nature changeable, during which we see through a glass darkly. Our bodies are unreliable, our moods variable. Riches are a thorn, lust is a poison. Everything bodily is a running river that passes on. Life is a war; the stay of a guest in a foreign city; an existence full of suffering and effort. Great buildings and strong fortifications collapse; their strength does not help them. The hardest of stones erode. The greatest fame is forgotten after a man's death; the greatest worldly titles disappear like smoke.
The most beautiful and praiseworthy thing a man can do before he dies is to devote his life to the untiring performance of virtuous acts, constantly seeking to practice prudence, justice, moderation, endurance; faith, hope, and unselfish love.
* * * *
It seemed as though all of Munich was involved in preparing for the presentation of Belisarius. Of course, Father Drexel was fielding a veteran team. For the past three decades, Jesuit theater in Bavaria had assumed an increasingly laudatory function. It praised the piety of the ruling house and the martial glory of its duke. This was far from the first performance that was no longer confined to the yard of the Wilhelmsgymnasium, the secondary school named for Duke Maximilian's father, but rather staged in the Schrannenplatz. It was designed to draw in the entire city, not just as spectators, but to a great extent, as participants. The city was the stage; the cast was huge. The casts of the Jesuit plays presented in Munich had been huge for a half-century, already. In 1575, about a thousand actors and extras took part in the presentation of Constantine the Great. Esther, with its crowd scenes at the court of Persia, required half again that many, or more.
Belisarius. Belisarius had armies. Scenes with armies required the maximum number of extras that the director could locate, cajole, persuade, or strong arm into appearing on a stage.
The costumes would be elaborate; the staging more so. Music had increasingly become an important element of the productions. The Oratory of Philothea, performed earlier in the year, had been more an opera than a play. In addition to the new prologue and epilogue, which Balde had sent from Amberg, they were adding music to the new production of Belisarius. That would require a couple of hundred additional performers, just for the vocals. Here a martial chorus of men; there a heavenly choir of angelic voices. It all added up.
The residents of Munich were becoming quite accustomed to seeing groups of heavily armed Roman soldiers strolling down the street, accompanied by Byzantine court ladies garbed in stiff robes and elaborate headdresses, not to mention an occasional angel. They were becoming used to hear
ing random explosions from the direction of the Schrannenplatz as the technicians experimented with the fireworks that would accompany the battle scenes. It was normal to observe portions of nearly full-sized ships (one side only, with braces behind them) being hauled through the streets on wagons, with much cursing by the teamsters as they had to negotiate through narrow Gassen to make their deliveries. There was constant hammering. The bleachers and pegs were saved from one performance to the next, of course; just placed in storage. Still, each time, they had to be fastened back together sturdily enough that there was no danger of their collapsing under the weight of those spectators lucky enough to obtain a seat.
The programs were at the printer. The play's dialogue would be in Latin, of course. However, the programs provided a German libretto, so that all the spectators could follow the action. There was little point in presenting such a spectacle if those in attendance could not understand the moral that it was all designed to impress upon them.
* * * *
Mary Ward called upon Father Rader. Between them, they got the removal plans for the English Ladies under way. He agreed that the announcing a pilgrimage might not be amiss, although that might also be considered something of a cliché. Perhaps such an announcement could be made more timely by linking it to the closing of the school for the wedding festivities. Perhaps the ladies were graciously doing this in order to make the space in their house available to the duke's important guests.
"Important guests," he said, "but not quite important enough to merit quarters in the Residenz itself. Or even in Duke Albert's old palace. I will give some thought to precisely who might fit into that category. Ecclesiastical guests, perhaps? In any case, we should represent it as being an act of generosity on your part. Since the Marian pilgrimage at Ettal has become so much more popular in recent years, particularly since Ettal is almost due south of Munich, we could try that. Your departure in that direction will scarcely raise immediate alarms in the mind of even the most zealous agent of the Holy Office."
* * * *
While Father Rader had been expecting Mary Ward, he had not been expecting Doña Mencia de Mendoza. She begged a favor from him. She needed to send an important and confidential letter to her brother, Cardinal Bedmar, in the Netherlands. If he would be so kind as to include it in the Jesuit mail bag . . .
He agreed. And wrote a letter of his own to Father General Vitelleschi. It might, at a minimum, he reminded the authorities in Rome, be prudent to alert the Jesuits at St. Mary's in Grantville to expect the arrival of the English Ladies, in order that they could arrange for appropriate housing, if nothing else. He understood that the up-time town had become very crowded in the past three years.
Chapter 38
Nova Confoederatio
Munich, Bavaria
The daily routine of the Bavarian court was greatly disrupted by the wedding preparations. Normally, over seven hundred fifty people lived in the Residenz. This week, there were twice that many. The cooks had brought in extra staff from the duke's other palaces. Still, they had been forced to hire temporary helpers. The usual residents had been relocated to less commodious quarters under the roof to accommodate important guests; the servants who normally slept under the roof were on pallets in the kitchens and cots lined along the back corridors. Even some of the administrative offices had been required to pack their papers in chests and vacate temporarily in order to provide additional lodging.
Servants of the important guests ran around demanding better rooms and special services for their masters and mistresses—hot water in the rooms, special ways to prepare certain foods, the need to borrow a seamstress, objections to the stabling provided for horses, even greater objections to the duke's mandate that the hundreds of carriages and baggage wagons, once they had delivered their passengers and trunks, must be parked outside the city walls to avoid clogging the streets. There were constant disputes about diplomatic precedence and protocol.
That didn't even count the guests who were not lodged in the Residenz, but who had quarters in inns or private houses and came to the palace during the day for various ceremonial occasions. Nor the visitors who were not invited guests but had come to see the wedding anyway. Nor the vendors who had applied for special licenses, with their wives and children. Nor the day laborers who were heaving and hauling stands and booths into place.
Diplomatic guests objected strenuously to having their personal possessions searched at the gates in the usual manner. Some of them held written exemptions authorizing them to enter without such a search. Some of them did not have room in their assigned quarters for all the baggage they had brought, so their servants were constantly running back and forth to the wagons to fetch something that had been left behind.
Every church in town was holding special services. A mass of thanksgiving here, a Te Deum there, a chorale here, a morality play there. People who ordinarily attended their local parish church and had no reason to go farther from their homes than the nearest market square were running all over town to hear and see them.
The whole city was in complete chaos. Half the time, the regular guards had no idea who the people walking down a given corridor in the palace or street in the city were or why they were there. This made them nervous, but they were under strict orders not to offend if they could avoid it. This was a celebration.
The extra guards, the ones brought in from the duke's country palaces and borrowed from garrison regiments outside Munich, by and large didn't even recognize the usual and customary occupants of the palace. They had no idea whether the people on a street lived there or were strangers, although, usually, they could safely presume that those who were walking around looking at the civic buildings and churches, going "oooh" and "aaah," were tourists.
This presumption could not be made about those who were wandering around the walls and fortifications of the city going "oooh" and "aaah." Any one of them could be a spy for the Swede. These gawkers made the captain of the guards very nervous, but as long as they did not directly trespass, his men were not allowed to chase them away. The commander of the Munich garrison would be very glad when the damned wedding was over and things got back to normal.
* * * *
The day after the wedding procession arrived in Munich, Duchess Mechthilde filed formal charges of witchcraft against the two foreign women who were being harbored in Archduchess Maria Anna's household, thus confirming Duke Maximilian's growing suspicions of his brother's disloyalty.
Duke Maximilian was under considerable pressure from his privy council to do something about it. Not, of course, to do any one thing about it. Donnersberger wanted him to quash the charges. Others, particularly Richel, didn't. Richel also advocated, quite strongly, making the most of the women's presence. Although the duke had not, in fact, deliberately obtained them to use as hostages, Richel admitted, he also argued that since they were here, Maximilian might as well use them for maximum leverage. It was unlikely that the Swede himself would pay much attention to the fate of two elderly female commoners. However, perhaps that could be used to divide him from his demonic allies? Or, if the regent in the Upper Palatinate did display concern, possibly one could extract concessions? The status of Leuchtenberg? That annoying south-of-the-Danube enclave at Neuburg? Richel insisted that it would be imprudent to overlook any possible advantages to be obtained from the situation. After all, he pointed out, if it should be determined that they were witches and the duke ultimately decided to handle them accordingly, he could do so without any conscientious scruples.
Almost reluctantly, Father Contzen agreed with Richel. Whatever the duke might promise the Swede or the up-timers or Duke Ernst in return for concessions, there was, in fact, no obligation to keep faith with heretics. That was the most general conclusion of the moral theologians. It might be considered casuistry, perhaps, but that was the accepted position. If the duke agreed to remand the women to the United States of Europe in return for certain concessions—he would not incur eternal damnation
if he changed his mind.
Father Vervaux cleared his throat. "The Dreeson woman, I believe, is Catholic."
Richel, on the basis of the personal experience of his wife, replied that during the course of time, a lot of Catholic women had been burned as witches if the judges determined that they were guilty. Adherence to Catholicism was not, in itself, an impediment to execution as a witch by a Catholic ruler, as demonstrated by the events in Bamberg, for example.
Most of the privy councillors wanted the duke to remove the women from the custody of the archduchess and imprison them. Or, at the very least, immure them in a convent. Preferably, the nuncio and Dekan Golla suggested, in the convent of the Poor Clares. That had proven to be a very satisfactory solution when the Inquisition had demanded the imprisonment of Mary Ward, the head of the English Ladies.
Duke Maximilian raised one of his graying black eyebrows. Golla shuddered. When the duke did that, he bore a much greater resemblance to many images of Mephistopheles than to that of a proper champion of the Catholic faith.
"Let there be a formal hearing for the women."
That was that. When the duke said, "let there be," there was.
* * * *
Item the First. Are these women actually who they say they are?
Item the Second. If so, why are they here?
Item the Third. Is there sufficient credible evidence to justify trying them for witchcraft?
(Item the Fourth. If not, why did Mechthilde bring the charges?)
The fourth would not go on the official agenda. It would, however, be very much on the duke's mind.
* * * *
Duke Maximilian looked at the note with disbelief. Archduchess Maria Anna asserted that since she had taken the two women into her household and was therefore responsible for their Schutz und Schirm, she must be present at the formal hearing and be permitted to provide them with competent counsel.
He waggled the piece of paper at Dr. Donnersberger. At Father Contzen. At Richel. The first two looked very uncomfortable; Richel looked annoyed. It was, in fact, an uncomfortable and annoying meeting of the privy council throughout, especially in light of the exclusion of Duke Albrecht.